Mr. THOMAS. I don't get that. My understanding is that you have in your system $66 million, of which 17 are spare parts. Is that $17 million at all 3 centers.

Mr. FORTIER. No, just here. At Davisville and Gulfport we will generate very little excess. Of the $67 million worth of excess in the yards and docks mobilization reserve, approximately $50 million is here, the other 17 million is at Davisville and at Gulfport.

Mr. THOMAS. What part of that is spare parts?

Mr. FORTIER. $17 million.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. At an Air Force activity we saw some refrigerators and stoves which are probably going to be declared excess and put on form 120s and circularized to the other services. Would it be economically wise to take into your inventory here that type of equipment?

Mr. FORTIER. If it is new equipment of the type of which we have a deficiency and is being excessed at no cost, we would pick it up. Mr. BALWAN. What do you mean, "at no cost."

Mr. FORTIER. We wouldn't have any money to pay for it.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. We are going to let the Air Force sell it as excess to their requirement.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. That is true, but equipment that is excessed to their requirements will be reported on 120s and will be circularized through the different services. If you saw that there were items which you might use, would you feel it economically wise to pick it up into your inventory?

Mr. FORTIER. Any item that did not entail repair and maintenance cost; yes.

Mr. BALWAN. Have you any example where you have picked up any of that equipment?

Mr. FORTIER. Yes; prior to taking purchase action we check with the Army and they advise use of any excess. For example, we have received some vehicles from the Army and a few tractors. The Army has received items from us on the same basis.

We look at all 120s that come through for screening. However, I must admit we are very critical because most of the items are in rather poor condition. If it is in poor condition and requires extensives repairs, we don't pick it up.

Captain CHURCH. In the short time that I have been here in the maintenance and retention of any of these things, it appears that the nearer we are to the raw material the easier it is to store and maintain. It is much easier and more economical to maintain such items as steel sheet piling than manufactured finished products. We are fortunate in yards and docks that the rate of obsolescence is not great.

A tractor 6 years old may not be the high-speed type as used today, but can still do the type of work it was designed for.

Mr. THOMAS. What do you figure your maintenance costs?

Commander HOBSON. Approximately 96,000 items are in storage here for which the construction equipment depot has maintenance responsibility. Not all these items require periodic exercising. The items we regularly exercise amount to 16,000 out of the 96,000. Automotive equipment is regularly exercised every 60 days and construction equipment every 45 days.

Normally, we spend approximately one-half million dollars a year. Total value of these items is about $85 million. So our maintenance cost is less than 1 percent.

Captain CHURCH. I would say it is between one-half and 1 percent. Mr. THOMAS. Those are for your larger items?

Captain CHURCH. Those are the larger items.

Mr. THOMAS. You are speaking about trucks that you have to start up and run and operate?

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Does the Army have the same type of maintenance program?

Commander HOBSON. I know the Army has a program, and I am sure the Air Force does. But unless you know exactly what is included in the maintenance figures it is misleading. I think in studying the cost of maintenance the figures should be broken down very precisely.

Mr. FORTIER. We are conducting studies of the Army's type of preservation and various other procedures utilized by industry. However, to date we have found that exercising is the most economical.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Are you using plastic tire covers?

Commander HOBSON. No; we are using the preservative covering. We have tried and we may change over to that. At the present time we are using only a preservative spray. It is a rubberized product. Mr. HOLIFIELD. Didn't you have some experience with some kind of preservative that was made in Los Angeles which you could not get accepted at headquarters?

Commander HOBSON. We are using a product made by the Willard people.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. That man came into my office once, and I inquired of the cataloging outfit, and they didn't give him a specification on it which would allow him to sell except on spot sales.

Mr. FORTIER. Since that time you talked to him that has been changed, and it now is a general stores item.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. Could he be talking about that liquid put into tires to make them puncture proof?

Commander HOBSON. I was talking about something that goes on the outside of rubber.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. The Army is using that quite extensively, and it is sprayed on the same as you would spray on paint. We feel we have had good experience. We haven't been using it very long, but we feel that for the nominal cost involved we have been getting some benefit from it. I am sure that it has been made a general stores item. (Captain Church introduced Commander Pabst, asking him to briefly cover mission of ABSD before lunch.)

STATEMENT OF COMDR. A. A. PABST, OFFICER IN CHARGE, ADVANCED BASE SUPPLY DEPOT, CONSTRUCTION BATTALION CENTER, UNITED STATES NAVAL ADVANCED BASE SUPPLY DEPOT, PORT HUENEME, CALIF.

Commander PABST. The United States naval advanced base supply depot, of which I am officer in charge, is an activity under management control of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts and technical control of the Bureau of Yards and Docks.

Its mission is as follows: It is responsible for the receipt, storage, preservation, issue, and shipment of BuDocks war reserve material; the receipt, storage, preservation issue, and shipment of drydock repair parts as a repair-parts distribution point: it is responsible for the proper stock control, accounting for, and processing of documents attendant to the handling of the above category of material; it coordinates and effects transshipment of ocean cargo; it is an authorized selling activity, receiving, storing, and disposing of rollup and excess material; as a tidewater assembly point for functional components it coordinates and effects inboard and outboard movement of all air, ocean, barge, truck, rail freight, and cargo for the United States naval advanced base depot, Port Hueneme, with the exception of household effects.

Mr. RIEHLMAN. At this time, the subcommittee will adjourn for lunch, and we shall convene the hearing again at as close to 2 p. m. as possible.

(Whereupon the subcommittee adjourned at 12: 15 p. m.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The subcommittee convened at 2: 15 p. m. to continue its hearing.) Mr. RIEHLMAN. The subcommittee will be in order. Mr. Balwan, would you please proceed?

Mr. BALWAN. Your name and experience for the record.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES A. PLOCH, PROCUREMENT DIVISION SUPERVISOR (SENIOR CIVILIAN DISPOSAL OFFICER), UNITED STATES NAVAL ADVANCED BASE SUPPLY DEPOT, PORT HUENEME, CALIF.

Mr. PLOCH. My name is Charles A. Ploch.

My disposal experience dates back to the coming into the program here in 1942, in which I, through the war years, was connected with a certain amount of disposal work to the surplus reclamation.

In 1946 I was transferred to the then known Reclamation and Surplus Division of the Navy. We were in the Civil Service program at that time, and that was the beginning of the War Assets program of which I was the supervisor, handling all incoming materials. Continental rollup or anything of a nature not to be included in stock came directly to reclamation, where it was identified, separated, reported on SP-1 awaiting disposal authority. As authority was granted and redistribution made, it became property of War Assets, and, at the call for samples, we sent to the yard; we then received back all samples and proceeded with shipment of all War Assets sold material.

Mr. BALWAN. It was your job to work with War Assets Administration people who were here?

Mr. PLOCH. We were the Navy portion of it. We received, stored, and shipped.

Mr. BALWAN. Did they have auction sales here?

Mr. PLOCH. Not as such. They had a few spot-bid sales. They had different piles of material on which they would ask for bids.

Mr. BALWAN. What was their experience with the spot-bid sales? Did they have any industry agents here who came in and took over the material?

Mr. PLOCH. The only thing that was apportioned by War Assets was a certain amount of building wire.

Mr. BALWAN. You have been in disposal ever since then?

Mr. PLOCH. I stayed until the termination of the War Assets program. I was in the salvage yard until about 1949.

I then went into storage and stayed for about 2 years, and in 1951 I came back into the disposal picture.